CH Cover tiles revised DT · Cloud Hosting editor David Tyler speaks to Phil Worms, Director of...

ManagementBalancing mobility and security

Event PreviewCloud Expo Europe 2014

Case StudyOrange Business Services

Hybrid ITBest of both worlds?

StrategyBuilding trust in the cloud

Round TableFuture proofing IT

CloudhostingCloudhostingJan/Feb 2014 l www.cloudhostingmagazine.co.uk l £8.50 Where Sold

INDUSTRY NEWS - USER STORIES - OPINIONS - INTERVIEWS - ANALYSIS

LAUNCH

ISSUE!LAUNCH

ISSUE!

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Contents

CONTENTS

Cloudhosting4

Time to excel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10The ever-changing cloud: take your expertise to the next level at the dramatically expandedCloud Expo Europe 2014 in London this February

Future proofing.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14The technology industry is notoriously fast-moving and changeable, and the advent ofcloud has accelerated that rate of change. Cloud Hosting magazine asks a selection ofbrave industry leaders for their predictions on what the next year will bring to the sectorand to the wider IT marketplace

Keeping customers on the rails. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18Cloud Hosting editor David Tyler speaks to Phil Worms, Director of CorporateCommunications at iomart Group plc

Building trust in the cloud.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20Wherever your business is in its 'cloud journey', you need to create a cloud services envi-ronment that is Secure, Trusted and Audit-Ready (STAR), argues Ken Allan, Global LeaderInformation Security, Ernst & Young

Editor’s comment.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

News.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 The time for cloud education in the channel is now Cloud services on the menu for UK IT consumption

A design for life.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Jeremy Powell, Director of Product Marketing at NemetschekVectorworks, explains how using cloud-based design applica-tions can lead to greater efficiency for architectural and relatedbusinesses

The future is still bright. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24Orange Business Services chose NetApp storage infrastruc-ture as the basis for its move into cloud services provision

Strategy: SharePoint. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26The Microsoft world is at a significant tipping point, arguesJohn Mancini of AIIM: customers are moving into a hybridworld, with some organisations moving to the cloud, somesticking with on-premise and most opting for a hybrid solution

Security through the cloud.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28Employee mobility will be the rule rather than the exception inthe cloud-connected enterprise, bringing with it a whole newraft of security concerns, argues Michael Sutton, VP of securityresearch at Zscaler

Controlled chaos.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30Lee Fisher from Abiquo explains how poorly planned out cloudadoption can undermine the benefits on offer

Untangling the network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31David Barker of 4D Data Centres offers some guidance on build-ing a new cloud-ready network with SDN at its heart

A bigger slice of the business.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32As the online business for Pizza Hut UK continues to expand,parent group Yum Brands has moved to new hosting partnerVirtustream

Best of both worlds?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34Hybrid IT would appear to be the prevailing deployment modelfor the foreseeable future, says research from the CIF

@CHMagAndAwardsJan/Feb 2014

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Welcome to the launch issue of Cloud Hosting magazine, from the publishers ofNetwork Computing, Storage, Computing Security and many other highlyregarded specialist IT titles. At BTC we have an outstanding track record of

identifying a technology sector that needs in-depth expert coverage and addressingthat need with quality editorial: interviews with industry leaders, case studies from thereal world, thought leadership and opinion pieces from vendors, integrators, analystsand the like - all served up in a highly digestible format that is reproduced across notjust the magazine but also our e-newsletters and web presence.

Of course, everyone and his dog is talking about cloud at the moment, but at CloudHosting we have a very clear focus: we won't be wasting pages on 'how-to' guides forsynching your mobile with the iCloud, or whether Google+ is better than LinkedIn. Ourreaders are senior business and IT people who have - or need - a clear understandingof the issues around cloud computing in today's enterprise.

In this issue, for instance, we look at the hybrid IT deployment model: an approach thatthe Cloud Industry Forum says will be around for the foreseeable future. Matt Eckersall,UK Director of Hosting, Microsoft, comments: "Because of its power to fundamentallychange how businesses operate and compete, the cloud is a game changer for manycompanies. As we focus on people, we know that no business service you create todaylives on an island. You need apps, communication, and collaboration to connecttogether in an agile way. To achieve this, we believe you need a comprehensive cloud -from platform, to productivity, to business solutions. It doesn't make business sense tomake a one-off software decision in today's world."

We also feature some fascinating insight from Ernst & Young (EY) on how to balancethe real and perceived risks of cloud services. As EY's Ken Allan says: "Cloud-basedservices are here to stay. IT functions need to learn to either work with them or sufferthe cyber-security and financial consequences that may result in having cloud adoptiontake place without the input and value of IT."

This is just the start of the journey for us at Cloud Hosting magazine, and we want tokeep you with us as readers - so let me know, via the email address below, what kindsof things you want to see us covering in future issues.

David [email protected]

From the Editor

3www.cloudhostingmagazine.co.uk Jan/Feb 2014 Cloudhosting

COMMENT

EDITOR: David Tyler([email protected])

NEWS EDITOR: Mark Lyward([email protected])

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Abby Penn([email protected])

DESIGN: Ian Collis([email protected])

COMMERCIAL MANAGER: Josh Boulton([email protected])

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DISTRIBUTION/SUBSCRIPTIONS:Christina Willis([email protected])

PUBLISHED BY: Barrow & ThompkinsConnexions Ltd (BTC)35 Station Square, Petts WoodKent BR5 1LZ, UKTel: +44 (0)1689 616 000Fax: +44 (0)1689 82 66 22

SUBSCRIPTIONS: UK £33/year, £55/two years, £79/three years; Europe: £45/year, £79 two years, £119/three years; R.O.W. £59/year £109/two years, £159/three years. Single copies can be bought for £8.50 (includes postage & packaging). Published 6 times a year.

No part of this magazine may be reproduced without prior consent, in writing, from the publisher. ©Copyright 2014Barrow & Thompkins Connexions Ltd

Articles published reflect the opinions of theauthors and are not necessarily those of thepublisher or of BTC employees. While everyreasonable effort is made to ensure that thecontents of articles, editorial and advertisingare accurate no responsibility can be accept-ed by the publisher or BTC for errors, misrep-resentations or any resulting effects.

CH Comment.qxd 14/02/2014 10:54 Page 1

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NEWS

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The rising adoption of cloud services isfundamentally changing how British busi-

nesses consume IT, according to a newreport produced by Cisco ConsultingServices, in conjunction with Intel. The reportfound that in a majority of organisations,control of IT planning and purchasing isincreasingly being shifted to lines of busi-ness (LOBs) such as HR, sales, and R&D.Their rising influence represents a markeddeparture from the traditional "top-down"approach, forcing IT departments to adapt.

"The Impact of Cloud on IT ConsumptionModels" report - based on a global survey ofover 4,000 IT decision makers - suggeststhe United Kingdom is at a tipping point in ITspending as cloud uptake increases. While43 per cent of funding currently comes fromLOBs, 59 per cent of respondents predict

that this will rise. As a proportion, the cloudrepresents almost a quarter of total IT spend(23 per cent), with that figure expected torise to 27 per cent by 2016.

Given that 70 per cent of respondentsbelieve IT planning will increasingly involvestakeholders from LOBs, and 59 per centbelieve purchasing authority will also eventu-ally reside with LOBs, the role of the ITdepartment looks set to change. While theymay once have planned, purchased, andimplemented entire projects, 70 per cent ofU.K. respondents believe that in the future,they will serve as "brokers" of services. Withthis new role comes new challenges: 77 percent of respondents said integrating cloudservices with in-house IT systems is nowtheir main concern.www.cisco.com/uk/ciscopowered

CLOUD SERVICES ON THE MENU FOR UK IT CONSUMPTION

The global cloud-based VDI market isexpected to grow at a CAGR of 25.51

per cent over the period 2013-2018. This isaccording to analysts Research andMarkets who recently released their find-ings as part of their 'Global Cloud-basedVDI Market 2014-2018' report. The reportsuggests that one of the key factors con-tributing to this forecast is the increasingneed among enterprises for remote accessinterfaces in order to access content anddata from centralised servers. It cites Dell,

Citrix Systems, VMware, Netelligent andRed Hat as some of the more prominentvendors in the VDI marketplace.

Commenting on the report, an analystfrom the Research and Markets team said:"The security of the data and applicationsis one of the major concerns for enterpris-es. With many enterprises adopting virtu-alised computing infrastructure and hostingtheir data and applications over the cloudinfrastructure, there is a need for securityfeatures to be incorporated as a part of theenterprise infrastructure. The VDI solutionproviders are providing better security fea-tures as a part of the solutions, which isleading to higher adoption of these solu-tions by enterprises and end-users.

"The communication networks are beingenabled with data encoding, whichenables secure transmission of data fromone point to another. Security features arebeing provided independent of theunderlying hardware configuration, whichis another positive factor leading to high-er adoption."www.researchandmarkets.com

VDI MARKET TO GROW BY OVER 25 PER CENT

leading international marketing company,Brodie & Stone, has chosen ALVEA Cloud

Attached Storage for secure and cost-effec-tive cloud-based back-up, storage and filesharing. This was in response to Brodie &Stone's need to consider alternative tapeback-up, file and email access ahead of itsMicrosoft Small Business Server 2008becoming obsolete in 2014.

RnD implemented the two-phase projectin January 2014 in a matter of weeks. Firstthe company's email was migrated to acloud-based hosted Exchange 2013 plat-form. This was followed by the migration offiles and seeding of data to ALVEA ServicesCloud Attached Storage and the replace-ment of the Small Business Server with anew Domain Controller located in Brodie &Stone's London head office. Two ALVEAServices C200 server devices were installedto provide local file access - one at thecompany's head office and the other at itsfactory in Essex. Each Cloud AttachedStorage server was backed up to the cloudto allow file access from any location.www.alvea-sservices.com

CLOUD MIGRATION

Rackspace's CEO of seven years hasretired as the web hosting company

looks to transition into a cloud softwaredeveloper. Lanham Napier, 42, who hasled the company since 2006, wasreplaced by the company's co-founderand former CEO Graham Weston.Rackspace, which leases online storagespace to companies, said it would work toestablish itself as a service provider forhybrid cloud, which involves storing datapartly on the customers' premises.

"We'll continue to build our capability in thesoftware, build more software that helps ourhybrid cloud operate better ... we're goingto continue to run more and more privateclouds for companies on-premise," Westonsaid on a conference call with analysts.www.rackspace.com

RACKSPACE TRANSITION


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NEWS

NetIQ has announced NetIQCloudAccess 2.0, the latest version of

its single sign-on (SSO) virtual appliancethat securely extends existing IAM process-es to include cloud-based SaaS applica-tions. With CloudAccess 2.0, IT teams canmore easily extend access controls beyondthe firewall to SaaS applications in order toprotect sensitive data and deliver a one-touch, consistent experience for users fromtheir desktop, laptop or mobile device.

As SaaS application adoption increases,users must manage more and more logins

and passwords, creating a risk that poorlymanaged accounts will lead to a databreach. These disparate identities cannotbe properly provisioned and deprovisionedby IT, making it difficult to meet complianceand governance requirements to certify whohas access to what assets.

CloudAccess 2.0 extends the convenienceand security of SSO to the cloud, helpingorganisations protect valuable, sensitive orregulated information. It also delivers secureyet simplified access to mobile users. www.netiq.com

NETIQ RELEASES CLOUDACCESS 2..0

The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has out-lined a set of 5 triggers impacting upon

small and mid-sized businesses that itbelieves will shape IT buying behaviourthroughout 2014. Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF,said, "Following our analysis of our recentresearch project of 250 UK-based SMEs,and in light of wider market conditions andtechnical innovation, the CIF expects thatthe majority of UK small to mid-sizedorganisations will be adopting and main-taining a hybrid approach to their IT. 69% oforganisations claim to use at least onecloud service, however, only 12% of firmstoday believe they can put everything in thecloud, meaning the vast majority will remainin a hybrid state for the foreseeable future."

To this end, the CIF has outlined their topfive considerations for SMBs looking toupgrade their infrastructure in 2014:

1. Hybrid IT will increase as the defactostatus of IT adoption across the SMB sec-tor. As such, a key consideration for anySMB is ensuring that they can manage theirIT as a whole, and therefore, capabilities formonitoring and management of IT opera-tions become more critical in delivering anend-to-end service and will encouragemore organisations to adopt IT as a man-aged service.

2. The approaching end-of-life of desktoptechnologies such as Windows XP and

Office 2003 will add impetus to the migra-tion of traditional PC workloads to cloudservices like Microsoft's Office 365 .

3. The approaching end-of-life of olderoperating systems and solutions such asWindows Server 2003 and Small BusinessServer will drive a review and refresh of ITserver infrastructure in the SMB sector, withmany opting to retain critical services likeCredentials (e.g. Active Directory), PrintManagement and File Management on-premise as a central service.

4. The constraints on Internet bandwidthfor many SMB's will continue to dictatewhere application workloads will be run,i.e. where it is most optimal for the organi-sation. Those with primarily office basedstaff will continue core services on premiseto gain LAN speed access, whilst thosewith more remote staff will favour cloudservices (and the reality is a mix will be truein most cases).

5. With cash flow pressure still on staffinglevels and capital expenditure, and theincreasing track record of cloud basedservice delivery models, the opportunity foran SMB to adopt IT solutions as a man-aged, OpEx priced, service are increasingand shaping the evolution of the supplychain with a new breed of IT ServiceProvider.www.cloudindustryforum.org

THE TIME FOR CLOUD EDUCATION IN THE CHANNEL IS NOW

Silver Peak has collaborated withVMware to offer its virtual WAN optimi-

sation software to support deployments onVMware vCloud Hybrid Service. Silver Peakaccelerates data transfers to the cloud andprovides an ongoing LAN-like experiencefor cloud-hosted applications, enablingVMware vCloud Hybrid Service users tomore quickly and easily transition to a pub-lic cloud or hybrid cloud environment.

VMware vCloud Hybrid Service is asecure, dedicated hybrid cloud service,however, the WAN can limit cloud perform-ance because of the inherent networkbandwidth, latency and quality challengesthat persist. Silver Peak and VMware areworking together to alleviate these issuesand provide vCloud Hybrid Service cus-tomers with high-performance access tocloud-based resources over distance.www.silver-ppeak.com

PEAK PERFORMANCE

Outsourcery believes that resellersshould now be making an urgent push

to familiarise themselves with the develop-ments of the cloud, as cloud adoptiongains momentum amongst end-users.Adam Cathcart, Head of Channel atOutsourcery says: "In our experience withresellers, many of them are still unsureabout how to advise customers on cloudservices. This was true in the past and hasimproved, but the rate at which cloud adop-tion is growing means that resellers whichare not prepared are likely to miss out onhuge opportunities and can't ignore theemergence of cloud anymore.

"We recently launched our InSite partnerportal for the channel. This has beendesigned to make it easier for VARs to selland help select the correct cloud servicesfor their customers and we hope that thiswill lead the way for resellers to feel morecomfortable with the concept of sellingcloud services and meeting the demandsof a growing market."www.outsourcery.co.uk

CLOUD INSITE FOR VARS

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Design offices are constantly lookingfor new methods of efficiency, andthey typically focus on off-loading

tasks that can consume valuable time onworkstations, as well as having moreflexibility in communication. Thus, computingand generating drawings and models in thecloud and then offering various ways tointeract with, share, and communicate thevisual design and associated data isfundamental to developing integrated cloudsolutions for CAD and BIM users.

CONVENIENCE, CCOLLABORATION,FREEDOM Noting this demand, our company, whichdevelops a line of CAD and BIM solutions forthe AEC, landscape, and entertainmentindustries under the Vectorworks brand,launched Vectorworks Cloud Services andthe Vectorworks Nomad mobile applicationin April 2012. Our goal was to providegreater convenience, collaboration, andfreedom for our users to access theirdesigns from any location, at any time. Withthe addition of this type of flexibility andefficiency to our users' workflows, webecame a service and solutions provider inaddition to a CAD and BIM softwareprovider. As such, we actively listen to ourcustomers and survey them regularly tolearn about their ever-evolving processes.Results from such engagement help to driveour choices for functional improvements toour cloud services.

For example, our Vectorworks Nomad 2.5release in October of 2013 includedintegration with Dropbox. At the time of theannouncement, Chief Technology Officer Dr.Biplab Sarkar said, "The integration withDropbox and the improved user interactionsfor measurement in Vectorworks Nomad 2.5are direct results of customer feedback. Whenwe surveyed our users, we found that theability to use available file storage productswas one of their top priorities, and theirnumber one wish for improvement wasmobile snapping."

STAYING CCONNECTED TTHROUGH THE CCLOUD Understanding how our customers use cloud-based applications in their daily practices alsohelps us to anticipate future needs and evolvetheir workflows.

One such customer is Todd McCurdy,FASLA, Principal and Director of LandscapeArchitecture + Planning at MorrisTerra inOrlando, Florida. He and his firm recentlypartnered with CYP Studios, which has officesin both Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, on a $2million project to revitalise Dayton's PattersonBoulevard Canal Parkway. The project alsoadded new landscaping, lighting, historicalsignage, sidewalks, and crosswalks to thishistoric area of the city.

McCurdy and his Florida-based team flew toOhio at several key times while the CYP

principals met weekly with local city officials tocommunicate updates and get feedback ondrawings and renderings. VectorworksLandmark software, cloud computing, and afew late nights with team members onFaceTime helped them overcome thechallenges of distance and separate designteams.

"There was a lot of sharing back and forth,sometimes when all of us were in our homeslate at night," said Eugenia Martin, ASLA, CYPStudios' Partner-in-Charge of the Columbusoffice. "We successfully used VectorworksCloud Services to share, view, and mark upour drawings. It was very easy to collaborateand communicate electronically."

McCurdy echoed how easy it was to makedesign decisions together using cloudcomputing. "Anytime one of us madechanges, the Vectorworks files automaticallysynchronised to our private cloud storage," hesaid. "Using a cloud-based workflow in thisway also saved us time because, forexample, we were able to push desktopprocessing that we needed to createrenderings to the cloud."

GREATER MMOBILITY AAND SSECURITYRon Kwaske of Ron Kwaske Architect inChicago, Illinois is also realising the benefitsof greater mobility, as well as enhancedsecurity, with cloud-based applications."Whether you are having a cup of coffee in the

A design for lifeJeremy Powell, Director of Product Marketing atNemetschek Vectorworks, explains how usingCloud-based design applications can lead togreater efficiency for architectural and relatedbusinesses

INDUSTRY FOCUS: CONSTRUCTION DESIGN

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morning or waiting for a client at a site,something can get done," he said. "It's justmore efficient to have our files andapplications available at any time, anywhere.For me, it is reassuring knowing that the dataand files are there on their servers, guardedand backed up … but, even so, most of theapps we use are also synced to ourcomputers so there is redundancy. Thus, forus, it is also more secure to use the cloud."

While Kwaske's toolkit currently includesVectorworks Cloud Services and theVectorworks Nomad mobile application, theDropbox file storage solution, the projectmanagement tool Basecamp, and thecustomer relationship management softwareHighrise, he remains open to newtechnology. "The existing applicationscontinue to evolve, new ones continue to beinvented, and we try to be as responsive tothat as we can be," he said. "We areconstantly reevaluating our needs."

He praises the ability of Vectorworks Nomadto create efficiency in his daily workflow byconverting a Vectorworks model to a PDF thatcan be viewed or annotated on a tablet ormobile phone. "It does what a cloud-basedapp should do: it saves time throughefficiency," he said. "The program grabs thefile, converts it, and resyncs it, so I don't haveto do anything. Vectorworks Nomad is an

extremely valuable tool because it is updateddaily, always available, and always current."

The impact such tools have on his businessis immense. "I can't quantify. It's my time.There's no way we can manually create PDFsof every page of every project every day. WithVectorworks Cloud Services and Nomad, it'sdone and is always there. So, it hassignificant impact."

Dr. Ilianna Kwaske, Ron Kwaske's wife and aprincipal in the firm, added that as Basecamphas added more features, they have used itmore in their practice. "It is an incredibleproject management tool that helps us keepall project-related information, discussionthreads, and tasks in one place," sheexplained. "They keep adding 'New Stuff,' asthey refer to it, making the application morepowerful and useful for us."

Kwaske said that he has also increased hisuse of Dropbox as applications such asVectorworks Nomad and JotNot Scanner Prohave integrated with the file storage solution.

DESIGNING AA FFUTURE FFOR CCLOUDFundamentally, project workflows in designoffices are increasingly adopting cloud-basedsystems for a variety of tasks, from file storageand synchronisation, to project management,to recording important conversations. By

focusing our cloud development efforts onbringing access and collaboration to thevisual components of design, the Vectorworksstrategy is one of integration.

The use of cloud-based applications indesign industries such as architecture andlandscape architecture is still relatively young,and it's exciting to think about what will bepossible in the next few years. As practitionersturn to these tools to add efficiency andflexibility to their workflows, they must alsoremain flexible about adopting and investingin new technology. And, with so manyapplications becoming available, they mustlook at the benefits of each and decide whatwill work best in their own practices.

"We are using seven to eight different appsright now and spending a significant amountof money on them, but we believe they areindeed increasing our efficiency," saidKwaske. "There are others out there that weare frequently evaluating, but there arefeatures with those applications we use thatare keeping us with them right now."

As the market for cloud-based applicationscontinues to evolve, Nemetschek Vectorworkswill continue to listen to customers andsupport their needs with new technologiesand solutions to help them save time, improvecollaboration, and increase efficiency. Ch


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Cloud Expo Europe 2014 is jam-packed with world-class cloudexperts, a major exhibition with a

record 200+ cutting edge suppliers plus300 expert speakers in a compellingconference and seminar programmecovering all the key issues. And whetheryou are from a major enterprise, thepublic sector, service provider or anambitious SME, you'll find case studiesfrom organisations that have faced - andovercome - similar challenges to the onesyou are wrestling with. It's a great chanceto ensure your organisation maximisesthe benefits of the ever-changing cloud.Last year's Cloud Expo Europe hadalmost 7,000 attendees, independentlyBPA audited and won the prestigious AEOAward for 'Best Trade Show' - for thesecond year running!

Following the success of the 2013 show atOlympia, which attracted more than 6,850attendees, AWS, Dell, NTT andOutsourcery have already joined thegrowing list of exhibitors for the 2014 event.The expansion to ExCeL London providesroom for new additions to the Expo,including a Software Defined Networkingprogramme, dedicated Big Data contentand a new dedicated programme fordevelopers - all designed to attract moredecision-makers from enterprises, serviceproviders and the cloud ecosystem.

An impressive range of speakers, headedup by Netflix CTO Adrian Cockroft, will alsohave the crowds flocking to the event.Confirmed panel speakers include ChrisKemp, CEO of Nebula and former CTO atNASA, Daniel Leabeau, Group CIO at

Time to excelThe ever-changing cloud: take your expertise to the next level at the dramatically expanded Cloud Expo Europe 2014 in London this February

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GlaxoSmithKline, as well as cloudcomputing experts from eBay, PayPal,Vodafone, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Philipsand Citibank.

CONFERENCE SSESSIONSThere will be something for everyone at thisyear's Cloud Expo Europe in the variousconference theatres. Let's take a closerlook at some of the business andtechnology themes being covered.

Keynote TTheatre:The cloud movement is driven by savvytechnology executives practicing a cloudfirst IT strategy across their business,coupled to a rapidly evolving, vibrant andbooming cloud marketplace, one which isconstantly pushing the cloud technologyenvelope. This theatre hosts foremostInternational cloud leaders, including someof the world's top rated visionaries, seniorindustry speakers and executives drivingthis change. Speakers will deliver theiroutlook of cloud's future, as well as leadingCIOs and senior IT executives on stage,who will be sharing their roadmaps forcloud success. Sessions will include:

"The Age of the Creator - Cloud withoutcompromise", with IBM;

"Big Data and the Cloud - two revolutionsthat are changing the world", withRackspace;

"How cloud is disrupting, liberating andchanging the boundaries of healthcare",with UCL NHS Trust;

"Putting IT in control of choice", with EMC.

Cloud MManagement, SServices and AApplications:New cloud technologies are changing theway organisations do and run theirbusiness. A successful IT strategy mustensure cloud-based resources, servicesand applications are living up to theirpromises. Choosing the right way to

manage your organisations data, serviceproviders, your customers and enablingfaster and more efficient technologydeployments are the key focus of thistrack's content. Sessions include:

"How to navigate the move to integratingCloud into your overall IT strategy", withIBM;

"Mobility: Balancing flexibility and privacy",with Workshare;

"Standing out in a crowd: Differentiatedcloud solutions", with EMC

Cloud SService PProviders && EEcosystem -Business:The rise of the cloud service providercontinues at break neck speed and thecloud offers huge rewards for serviceproviders, both those running their owntechnology and those embracing technical,business and open source partnerships.For the best operators, the cloud promisesenhanced services for customers whilstgenerating financial rewards for businessowners and shareholders. This theatrecovers business models for cloud serviceproviders, hosters, telcos, ISPs, VARs, SIs


EVENT PREVIEW: CLOUD EXPO EUROPE


Event Preview: Cloud Expo Europe

Cloudhosting12

and ISVs looking to extend their own cloudservices or partner with other serviceproviders and cloud businesses. Sessionsinclude:

"With increasing drive towards cloudstandards, what opportunities do serviceproviders have to create and maintaindifferentiated service offerings?", withGigas, Adapt and others;

"Reseller/integrator to cloud service

provider - what role does the channel playin the delivery of cloud services, which usecases can they address and do they buildservices themselves or act as a link in thesupply chain?", with Verizon, Interoute andothers;

"Cloud services brokers - are they here tohelp the service providers, VARs and MSPswith cloud integration services?", withZertia, Cloudwork and others;

"Quality of service in the cloud - is itimportant and if so, how can it bemonitored and assured?", with Calligo andothers

Cloud SService PProviders && EEcosystem -Technical:Service providers and cloud businessesmust continue to embrace newtechnologies and interoperability strategiesto ensure their customers reap the cloud'srewards and they stay ahead of theircompetitors. This track is packed full ofEuropean Service Providers, internationalcloud leaders and analysts; it covers thekey and current technology issues cloudservice providers and the technologyecosystem must embrace to retain and winnew customers. Sessions include:

"Cloud Data Centre Connectivity 2.0business benefits, case studies and newmonetisation models", with Digital Realtyand others;

"Data overload - what role does the serviceprovider play for enterprises who needcloud-based data management andanalytics, to crunch and analyse huge setsof data?", with IBM and others;

"Interoperability in the cloud - the cases forand against - what does in mean for cloudservice providers?", with VMWare andothers;

"Use cases for enterprise cloud - what arethe top services/workloads that large

300 Speakers - the world's best enterprise and cloud service provider conferenceprogramme.

The New Network Evolution Zone - showcasing the latest network technology, includingSDN (Software Defined Networks) and NFV (Network Function Virtualisation).

A Total of 10 Dedicated Theatres - Including the new Software Defined Data Centre andNetworks theatre, an enlarged Big Data theatre, a new live showcase theatre and a 350seat plus keynote theatre - all located at the heart of the exhibition: Keynote Theatre - 350 seats! Virtualisation, Infrastructure and Platforms Cloud Management, Services and Applications Security & Governance Cloud Service Providers & Ecosystem - Technical Cloud Service Providers & Ecosystem - Business Big Data & Analytics CIF Theatre - Cloud Industry Forum Software Defined Data Centre and Networks Theatre Product Showcase Theatre - Live Cloud Technology Demos Enhanced service provider content, with more than 30 panels, hosting 100 service

provider and technology industry CEOs, CTOs and senior decision makers from 17different countries. The panellists will cover the cloud industry's hottest business andtechnology topics.

20 panels of European cloud service providers - on stage to discuss the latest andmost important business and technology trends in the service provider market andcloud ecosystem.

A co-location with Data Centre World - Europe's biggest data centre event. The twoevents combined are set to form Europe's biggest emerging technology event.

A new venue - Having outgrown Olympia's National Hall, Cloud Expo Europe 2014 willfor the first time be held at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre, London's most advanced andmodern events venue. A high-tech venue for a high-tech show!

WHAT'S NEW FOR 2014?




Event Preview: Cloud Expo Europe

organisations are moving to the cloud andwhy?", with Orange Business Services andothers;

"The European cloud service providermarketplace - which technologies arehaving an impact and how must serviceproviders adapt to extend their reach furtherinto the cloud?", with Attenda, DeutscheTelekom and others.

Cloud IInnovations && SShowcase TTheatre:The use of cloud technology acrossorganisations of all shapes and sizes isgrowing rapidly - but is your businesskeeping pace with the latest and greatesttechnologies? This conference track hostsdiscussions on leading-edge cloudtechnologies and services, alongside liveproduct demonstrations from cloud vendorsand service providers. Session topicsinclude:

"Demonstrating how to keep your cloudperformance consistent", with Databarracks;

"Hybrid Cloud Backup. What it is. What it'sgood for", with Western Digital;

"Adaptive User Authentication in the Cloud".with SMS Passcode.

Cloud IIndustry FForum TTheatre:The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) iscommitted to ensure trust, transparencyand confidence in the delivery of CloudServices to business users. Leadingindustry speakers from CIF memberorganisations will debate key issuesimpacting the development of the industryand share best practice strategies for bothservice providers (26th) and enterprises(27th). Including Case Studies from CIFcertified providers, demonstrating howCSPs ensure they are accountable to theircustomers. Sessions will include:

"Secure cloud services in a regulatedenvironment - sharing insights andexperiences across both UK and EU

perspectives", with ATOS;

"Enterprise CIOs - Is Amazon or VMwareyour cloud answer? Emulate, compete orjoin forces?", with ScienceLogic;

"How CSPs can increase end userconfidence in moving to a cloud servicedelivery model - the value of CIFCertification", with Outsourcery.

The CIF theatre will also be hosting severalround table/expert panel events over thetwo days of the event, as well as the first UKCloud Awards, showcasing innovation,achievement and passion in British cloudcomputing deployments.

Cloud Expo Europe takes place at ExCeLExhibition Centre, London on the 26th &27th February 2014, entry to the event isentirely free of charge. The event is co-located with Data Centre World, Big DataExpo Europe and the Open Cloud Forum,making it even more of an unmissableevent for anyone involved in decisionsrelating to cloud strategies andinfrastructure. More iinfo: wwww.cloudexpoeurope.com


Campbell WWilliams, SSix DDegrees GGroup:Data continued to be a major focus for2013 but for businesses it wasn't so

much a question of "How much data?" as"Where is my data?", "How safe is my data?"and "Who might be looking at my data?"Security and sovereignty of data has becomea priority for businesses using the cloud. Thiswas seen after Edward Snowden's revelations

about the US, home of many large technologycompanies and cloud computing providers,and two specific pieces of legislation, the USPatriot Act and the US Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Amendment Act (FISAA).Businesses are beginning to ask: "Do I wantmy data on clouds provided by UScompanies with lowest common denominatorsecurity, or no SLA at all and no room tonegotiate?"

For the future, the questions will still be aboutdata, but businesses will realise that if that datais important to them, they need to keep itunder their control. This means working withproviders they trust and putting in placesystems that keep their data secure.Businesses will evolve from thinking aboutclient/server architectures to a client/cloudmindset; the client will be more than just thePC/laptop, it will be a whole host of devices. ITdepartments will be forced to try and stopcontrolling individual devices and start to focuson software and services that are deviceagnostic yet keep precious data secure. At thesame time the "internet of everything" willcontinue to grow; there will be more peopleand more devices. Machine-to-machine,smart devices and 3D printing will all havesignificant ramifications for how we architectour systems and networks.

Nat MMaple, AAcronis:Three things that will happen in 2014:1. Cloud storage will evolve. Consumers willno longer store single files to the cloud. They'llinstead use the cloud to mirror their desktop,

Future proofingThe technology industry is notoriously fast-moving and changeable, andthe advent of cloud has accelerated that rate of change. Cloud Hostingmagazine asks a selection of brave industry leaders for their predictions onwhat the next year will bring to the sector and to the wider IT marketplace

ROUNDTABLE: CLOUD FUTURES


Predictions.qxd 13/02/2014 12:51 Page 2

laptop, tablet or mobile device - so that if adevice is ever lost, stolen or broken it can berestored instantaneously. We've seen this startto seep into the mainstream with iCloud, andwe'll see even more of it next year.

2. Consumer privacy concerns will grow.Consumers will become more sceptical aboutstoring their files within services like Facebookand Google. Privacy consciousness will hit atipping point, with consumers looking foralternatives on how to store data beyond theirindividual devices. Consumers will realise thecloud "isn't enough" for backing up theirinformation.

3. Catastrophic data loss will forge emotionalconnections. The phenomenon of "forcedobsolescence" will make more people losetheir data. Loss creates emotional connection -- you don't know what you have until you loseit. Therefore the trend of having to consistentlyupdate devices will show people howimportant it is to store their memories outsidethe device.

Kevin LLinsell, AAdaptDuring 2013 businesses began to get over thehype (and fear) around cloud computing.Organisations are no longer wary of the cloudand are becoming used to the concept, theterminology and also the business benefitsthat are synonymous with cloud computing -

speed of deployment, scalability, capitalexpenditure savings, flexibility andtechnological innovation offered by CloudService Providers (CSPs).

In 2014, to get more from the cloud,businesses will start to move away fromworking within one rigid cloud model. Insteadof outsourcing to just one CSP and buying anoff-the-shelf package, businesses will expect tobe able to work with a CSP that knows theminside-out. Working with the right CSP will allowbusinesses the chance to get more than justthe basics from the cloud in 2014, taking eachbusiness objective as a starting point andusing cloud computing to meet that objective.So whether it's accommodating a mobileworkforce with Desktop as a Service (DaaS),or provisioning for overseas expansion withInfrastructure as a Service (IaaS), businesseswill be utilising cloud computing moreintelligently this year.

Paul CCoates, RRiverbed:Over the past year, whilst we have seen a lot ofdiscussion about the Gartner mega trends -cloud, social, mobile and big data -organisations have continued to invest invirtualising and consolidating their ITinfrastructure. In 2014 we can expect to seefour key trends that will impact businesses:

1. Single cloud strategies will fade.

Companies are increasingly automating theshifting of workloads from one cloud serviceto another in order to achieve optimumperformance, price and availability.Businesses are beginning to realise thathaving a single venue for computing leavesthem exposed to risks from an availability andperformance perspective, so in 2014, we willsee companies move away from a singlecloud strategy towards a multi-cloud strategyapproach.

2. 'Software defined everything' hitsproduction. SDN is already proving its worthto a number of organisations running verylarge networks. We have already seen thevirtualisation of servers and desktop PCs -now however virtualisation is coming to thenetwork. In 2014 we'll see organisationsfinally implement software-definedarchitectures to achieve continued flexibilityand control. We can expect individual termslike "software defined networking" and"software defined storage" to give way tolarger concepts around the software defineddata centre (SDDC) and software definedbranch. While a true SDDC will be somedistance off for many businesses, over thenext 12 months businesses will need toadopt the right infrastructure elements early,and begin to implement virtualisation andSDN to help them progress toward a fullyvirtualised data centre.

"Working with the right Cloud Service Provider will allow

businesses the chance to get more than just the basics from

the cloud, taking each business objective as a starting point

and using cloud computing to meet that objective. So

whether it's accommodating a mobile workforce with

Desktop as a Service (DaaS), or provisioning for overseas expansion with

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), businesses will be utilising cloud computing

more intelligently." - Kevin Linsell, Adapt





Cloudhosting16

3. Consumerisation shifts power from the ITorganisation to the users, whether that'semployees or customers. As the power of theindividual and user expectations continue togrow, IT organisations will have to adapt totheir users. In 2014, IT organisations willrespond by implementing metrics andmeasuring the satisfaction of their users.

4. Big data drives private cloud storage. In2014, Big Data will become even bigger, drivenlargely by the growth of "Internet of Things".However, as everything becomes driven by IPaddresses and the amount of data generatedcontinues to grow, we can expect this to putunprecedented pressure on storage strategiesand technologies. As a result, over the nextyear we can expect two things. Firstly, in-housecompanies will need to move towards acombination of robust storage hardware andsoftware that allows for quick access to

relevant information. Secondly, as data storageneeds increase, more companies will turn toprivate cloud storage.

Tarkan MManer, NNexenta:Over 2013 the IT world recognised the needfor a software-defined storage model thatabstracts data from the hardware on which itresides, enabling the creation of a highlyscalable logical resource that can be centrally(and automatically) provisioned and managed.It is now a given that this is the only way to trulyachieve the vision of a software-defined datacentre - one can flexibly deploy highly availableapplications on shared hardware resources,migrate them across locations and scale upand down in response to demand. Now thisvision has been achieved, the IT world willsettle for nothing less than a software-defineddata centre that allows it to efficientlyconsolidate, protect and manage physical,

virtual and cloud-based workloads and enjoy amore agile and scalable shared cluster ofbusiness-critical applications across publicand private clouds.

This year then, Software-defined Storage willshake up the market. Software-defined storageis the commoditisation of storage and willseparate the software function from hardwareand give service providers a less expensivealternative to take to customers. By workingwith any protocol stack, resellers can buildspecialised storage systems on commodityhardware, rather than expensive specialisedappliances. A key enabler of the SDDC isvirtualisation. This is being leveraged by theopen source community to build lessexpensive cloud and storage stacks which wesee as a major driver to save in deploymentcosts (CapEx) as well as driving down OpExand TCO. Ch

"… the IT world will settle for nothing less than a software-

defined data centre that allows it to efficiently consolidate,

protect and manage physical, virtual and cloud-based

workloads and enjoy a more agile and scalable shared

cluster of business-critical applications across public and

private clouds."- Tarkan Maner, Nexenta

"Businesses will evolve from thinking about client/server

architectures to a client/cloud mindset; the client will be

more than just the PC/laptop, it will be a whole host of

devices. IT departments will be forced to try and stop con-

trolling individual devices and start to focus on software

and services that are device agnostic yet keep precious data secure." -

Campbell Williams, Six Degrees Group



Co-located event:

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Registration Sponsor: CIO & VIP Lounge: Platinum Sponsors:Diamond Sponsors: Premier Sponsors:Event Partners:

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David TTyler: There is a strange dichotomybetween the relative newness of the cloud -especially in terms of its use by enterprises -and the longevity of firms like iomart, whohave effectively re-invented themselves astechnologies have changed. How did thecompany get to be where it is today?Phil WWorms: The iomart business celebratedits 15th birthday just before Christmas last

year, which makes us the same age asGoogle, older than YouTube: in terms of theinternet's lifespan, we've pretty much beenthere from the start. And we've seen someamazing changes over a relatively shortperiod.

We started life as an integrated telco, with ahosting arm, but crucially we were also one of

the first UK triallists for the rollout ofbroadband. So our focus was very much onbroadband and hosting in those early days.What we realised as we grew that business,and became seen as an authority onbroadband, was that connectivity was goingto be crucial to our continued success - andindeed the success of broadband takeupacross the board. The widespread adoption -almost commoditisation - of broadband hastotally changed the landscape. And as we'vemoved on that has increasingly come toinclude mobile as well, whether 3G or 4G. Theonly time we even stop to think about the levelof connectivity that we now all take forgranted, is when it's not there for somereason! You know the feeling, when you'rebooking into a hotel and realise it doesn't offerfast broadband and wi-fi, you're almosttempted to book into the one down the roadinstead. That's how ubiquitous this technologyhas become.

DT: It is clear that one side of the equation forcloud hosting depends on the ubiquity of fastbroadband - presumably the other side relieson the growth in outsourcing, and theeconomic arguments there?PW: In a way it feels like things have come fullcircle since those days when we were trying toget people to adopt broadband - connectivityis as big an issue now as it was in those days.There are several reasons for this. As theoutsourcing movement has reached a tippingpoint - and more and more organisations aremaybe wondering why they should keep allthis information inside their business - peopledon't want to be trying to move large volumes

Keeping customerson the railsCloud Hosting editor David Tyler speaks to Phil Worms, Director ofCorporate Communications at iomart Group plc

INTERVIEW: IOMART

Jan/Feb 2014 Cloudhosting18

iomart.qxd 14/02/2014 14:46 Page 2

of backups or multimedia files via a slowconnection. It needs to get where it's goingquickly, and securely - and you also need tobe able to retrieve it again just as quickly.

Some people are saying that the shift to thecloud is like the beginning of a secondindustrial revolution. It seems to me that if youdo compare this to the original industrialrevolution, it was the advent of the railroadsthat transformed the economic well-being ofbusinesses - once they could transport goodsfrom A to B quickly and cost-effectively, thenwe saw the rapid economic development ofthe USA, UK and Europe. To stretch theanalogy then, it's almost like the ISPs, datacentres and cloud services providers areoffering the same sort of infrastructure,supporting the new industrial revolution. Theinternet is like the railway lines of the Old West!

DT: So how does a company like iomart reactto the technological and business changesthat have affected the world so much in recentyears?PW: It's not often that a company can say thatit foresaw something coming and planned forit, built a strategy around it and went on todeliver on that strategy. Perhaps we had anelement of luck in our success, and certainlythe state of the global economy has helped tofocus everyone's minds on managing costs,but nonetheless I would say that we didforesee as far back as 5 or 6 years ago, thatthe cloud was going to become the de factotrading platform for today's world. We alsorealised because of our own experience, that

where you are reliant on third parties - as wehad been reliant in the early broadband dayson BT for their network, for instance - that youcan only own certain parts of the customerexperience. That is to say the parts that youare directly responsible for. That can leave youexposed as a service provider - customersdon't want to hear that a problem is down tosomething supplied by someone else whohas let you down. This led us to make whatmany saw as a bold decision.

Six or seven years ago we saw a lot of whatwe called 'server huggers': IT departmentsand management who wanted to retaincontrol over their IT estate management. Atthe same time people were having to carefullyevaluate their costs and maybe rethink whatwas and wasn't their core business. Ofcourse then a lot of CEOs and FDs began toask "Why are we buying all these servers?There must be better ways of buyingcomputing capability."

DT: In theory IT outsourcing to CSPs lookslike a no-brainer in many ways, but there areclearly still lots of issues to be resolved,aren't there?PW: Companies will only have the confidenceto make that kind of big shift in thinking if theyknow that the change will not disrupt theirbusiness in any way. So this is why we madethe decision that if we were going to move intocloud services provision, we needed to do it insuch a way that we owned the customerexperience end to end. Once we'd come tothat realisation we very quickly came to see

that the 'engines' of the internet are the datacentres. I know lots of people still have thisidea of cloud as being something almostliterally ethereal, but of course the fact is thatthe data has to reside somewhere, of course -and that is the data centre.

So we went out and we purchased an initialestate of five UK data centres, and thenensured that they had what we describe as'two of everything': two power feeds etc., sothat there is literally no single point of failurepossible. And we've built out from there. Whenwe started out on this road it was quite novelfor a firm to say 'We are a hosting companywith data centres', as opposed to being eithera data centre operator or a hosting company.We have now grown to a base of ten UK datacentres, along with points of presences in sixinternational locations. In the UK setup, all ofthose data centres are networked using ourown fibre network. So we are literally not relianton anybody else.

What that allows us to do, that others can't,is to deliver products and services that aretruly market leading, backed by the idea thata customer can take say two virtual serverswith us, and they don't know - or need toknow - whether those servers are in Wales orin Manchester. And in fact it doesn't matter tothem. It gives us a flexibility and a supportstructure that means we can offer servicelevels to our customers that I genuinely don'tbelieve can be matched anywhere else inthe industry.More iinfo: wwww.iomart.com


INTERVIEW: IOMART

"As the outsourcing movement has reached a tipping point - and more and

more organisations are maybe wondering why they should keep all this infor-

mation inside their business - people don't want to be trying to move large

volumes of backups or multimedia files via a slow connection. It needs to

get where it's going quickly, and securely - and you also need to be able to

retrieve it again just as quickly."

iomart.qxd 14/02/2014 14:46 Page 3

Not that long ago, cloud computingwas little more than a speck on thehorizon. We heard reports of it

rapidly becoming a mainstreamtechnology, but it had yet to yet to make ameaningful impact on our technologylandscape. According to EY's GlobalInformation Security Survey, in 2010, 30%of respondents indicated that theirorganisation used or was planning to usecloud computing-based services. In 2011,the percentage had risen to 44%.

By 2012, cloud computing had reached atechnological tipping point: almost 60% ofsurvey respondents said their organisationwas using or planned to use cloudcomputing services. And yet, 38% ofrespondents said that they had not takenany measures to mitigate the risks of usingcloud computing services. This disruptivetechnology was advancing faster thanmany could secure it.

BUILDING AA BBETTER WORKING WWORLDA more recent Forrester Research reportsuggests that for 73% of surveyedbusinesses in Europe and North America,security remains a major concern whenconsidering cloud computing.

One of the first principles of improving

information security is take control of yourenvironment. It would therefore feelcounterintuitive for an organisation tosurrender control of its IT infrastructureand data to a third party. And yet thisapproach may offer the best opportunity toaddress increasingly complex security andprivacy challenges. Rather than becomingan organisation's worst security nightmare,cloud computing platforms may offer itsbest hope to create a more secure ITenvironment by strengthening controls andimproving information and securitycapabilities.

WHAT'S TTHE IISSUE?No longer considered an emergingtechnology, cloud computing serviceshave entered the mainstream. Today, asignificant majority of organisations haveeither adopted or are planning to adoptsome form of cloud computing technology.Whether CIOs know it or not, their dataand corporate boundaries have enteredthe cloud. Business units, departmentsand business partners are engagingdirectly with cloud services providerswithout first consulting IT: a phenomenonwe call "cloud creep." The lines of our onceclear corporate network boundaries arenow blurry.

However, despite its ubiquity, many IT

executives remain hesitant to endorse a"cloud first" approach. Even worse, thereare some who refuse to adopt any cloud-based service at all.

Some fear that communicating data overa public network will increase itsvulnerability to cyber attacks. Others worrythat cloud service providers offering thesame infrastructure to multiple clients inmultiple locations will not be able tomaintain segregated confidentiality. Stillothers express concern that transmittingtheir data across international boundarieswill expose them to diverse legal andregulatory requirements in jurisdictionswith which they're unfamiliar.

Unfortunately, these fears and IT'sperceived need to retain physical controlsover its environment can increase anorganisation's risk rather than mitigating it.Within many organisations, when businessunits that want to use cloud computinghear "no" from IT, they simply go off andprocure the service themselves. This notonly extends the organisation's ITenvironment without the right protectionsin place, but it also takes cloud computinginto the shadows where IT can neitheranticipate nor address the resulting risks.

IT must shift its focus from saying "no" to

Building trust in the cloudWherever your business is in its 'cloud journey',you need to create a cloud services environ-ment that is Secure, Trusted and Audit-Ready(STAR), argues Ken Allan, Global LeaderInformation Security, Ernst & Young

STRATEGY: RISK MANAGEMENT


Ey Opinion.qxd 13/02/2014 13:12 Page 2

saying "yes" in a way that adds value tothe business and protects it from mountingcyber-security risks. Developing a cloudframework that creates a secure, trustedand audit-ready (STAR) environment maybe just what IT executives need to say"yes" with confidence.

WHY NNOW?Whether IT professionals like it or not,cloud computing services have becomean integral part of day-to-day businessactivities. Between 2010 and 2012, cloudadoption rates nearly doubled. Those whohave embraced cloud-based serviceshave generated internal efficiencies,attracted new customers, discovered newavenues to market their products,increased internal collaboration andgained an overall advantage over theircompetitors.

HOW DDOES IIT AAFFECT YYOURBUSINESS?It takes little more than 15 minutes and acredit card to purchase and set up a cloudsolution, making it an easy workaround forbusiness executives that too often hear "no"from their IT functions. In largeorganisations, the proliferation of thisphenomenon without IT oversight createsgrowing security, privacy and financial risksto the organisation.

Even those organisations that haveadopted cloud services are exposed. Often,there is a gap between the controls typicallyimplemented in the cloud and the controlsnecessary to create a secure, trusted andaudit-ready cloud environment.

IT executives who have not worked withthe business to embrace the cloud have

seen a marked increase in shadow IT withintheir organisation and a correspondingdecrease in their influence within theorganisation. In EY's 2013 GlobalInformation Security Survey, only 17% ofparticipants indicate that their informationsecurity function fully meets the needs of thebusiness. Changing information security'smind-set to help the business find a pathrather than block it is the challenge thatorganisations face.

Cloud-based services are here to stay. ITfunctions need to learn to either work withthem or suffer the cyber-security andfinancial consequences that may result inhaving cloud adoption take place withoutthe input and value of IT.

THE SSTAR AAPPROACHSince banning cloud services within anorganisation is not an option, IT executivesshould shift their focus toward building asecure, trusted and audit-ready (STAR)cloud environment.

SECUREA secure cloud environment has theappropriate controls to protect theconfidentiality, availability and integrity of thesystems and data that resides in the cloud.Appropriate procedural and technicalprotections are in place to protect data atrest, in transit and in use.

TRUSTEDA trusted cloud environment is designed tostand the test of time. It should provide highavailability and resilience to adverse events.

AUDIT-RREADYAn audit-ready cloud environment hascontinuous compliance and is certified tomeet specific industry regulations andlegislation. Appropriate procedural andtechnical protection is in place, documentedand can be verified for compliancepurposes.

The following six domains contain the





Cloudhosting22

various controls and procedures required tosupport a STAR environment. This model canbe flexible and should accommodate thedifferent of cloud deployment models so thatIT can provide clear guidance to theorganisation to promote responsible adoptionof the cloud.

1. Organisation. Cloud services impact theorganisational behaviours. Organisationsneed to document roles and responsibilitiesassociated with the use of cloud services andtrain employees regularly on these protocols.

2. Technology. IT functions should designapplications according to industry securitystandards, encrypt the data, and implementrole-based access and identity managementsolutions.

3. Data. IT functions need to classify andinventory data, assign data owners andsecurely purge data that is no longerrequired.

4. Operations. Business continuitymanagement (BCM) and resiliency programpolicies and procedures should includeperiodic review and testing. Additionally,policies and procedures for BCM, changemanagement and data center security shouldbe documented to formalise roles andresponsibilities.

5. Audit and compliance. Organisationsshould plan and execute audits in a way thatminimises business interruption. Formaximum assurance, organisations shouldengage a third party to perform the audit andcertify the environment.

6. Governance. There are many cloudoptions from which organisations maychoose, from public cloud services, tobuilding a private cloud, to a hybridapproach. Regardless of the deploymentpath organisations pursue, governanceprocesses should be scalable, repeatable,measurable, defensible and constantlyimproving.

Using the model as a foundation, IT functionscan then create a framework to:

Assess and monitor by evaluating theorganisation's current risk profile and thendeveloping a plan to address key areas ofexposureImprove and enhance by executingremediation activities that support the planCertify and comply by obtaining third-party assurance that the organisation'scloud environment is secure, trusted andaudit-ready

THINK ''CLOUD FFIRST'Widespread consumption of cloud servicesisn't 'on its way'. It's here. Early adopters ofcloud services have already gainedcompetitive advantages. It is clear that thoseorganisations who can think "cloud first" whilemanaging their risks through a clear cloudtrust model are benefiting from theefficiencies, cost savings and additionalcapabilities that cloud brings.

By creating a framework based on six cloudcontrol domains, organisations - regardlessof what stage they are at in their cloudjourney - can create a cloud servicesenvironment that is secure, trusted and audit-ready. The key is to find ways to balance thereal and perceived risks with the value ofadopting a cloud solution that improves thesecurity of an organisation's intellectualproperty. More iinfo: eey.com/5



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Orange Business Services, the Orangebranch dedicated to B2B services, isa leading global integrator of

communications solutions for multinationalcorporations. With the world's largest,seamless network for voice and data,Orange Business Services reaches 220countries and territories. In 2010, thebusiness was at a turning point. Despite thegrowing demand for telecommunicationsservices, increased competition and thecommoditisation of bandwidth had broughtrevenue growth in the industry to a standstill.

"How do you fight this paradox?" asks VivekBadrinath, Orange deputy CEO ofInnovation, Technology, and CustomerExperience. "You increase the value of whatyou deliver to your customers." OrangeBusiness Services quickly reinvented itself,moving into cloud computing with its FlexibleComputing cloud service.

Orange Business Services realised it had tomove quickly to meet burgeoning customerdemands and reinforce its position in theindustry. Explains Philippe Laplane, SVP

Orange Cloud for Business: "Storage is a keypart of our cloud computing solutions, so theagility of our storage and data is critical to oursuccess."

Orange Business Services chose NetAppstorage and data management technologiesto enhance the agility, security, scalability,efficiency, and nonstop operations of itsoffering and support its ambitious cloudrevenue goal of 500 million euros by 2015."The technology and partnership fromNetApp have been key to our success in thecloud," says Laplane.

THE SSTORAGE CCHALLENGE"Fast time to market was important becauseour existing telecom customers were eagerfor laaS, and we wanted to be the companyto serve them," explained Yann Degardin,Technical Project Lead, Orange BusinessServices. "To meet our aggressive launchschedule, we initially used the same third-party Fibre Channel storage area network(SAN) platform that we already used for ourown business, in conjunction with CiscoCatalyst switches.

But the SAN platform hampered ourflexibility, in two ways. First, the maximumLUN size with Fibre Channel is 16TB.Therefore, we had to aggregate LUNs forcustomers that wanted larger datastores,and aggregation can decrease virtualmachine performance. Also, a customer thatneeded 80GB had to provision and pay for200GB, the smallest unit. We believe that ourcustomers should have the flexibility toprovision any size datastore."

The other drawback of the previous storagesolution was that expanding or contracting a

The future is still brightOrange Business Services chose NetApp storage infrastructure as thebasis for its move into cloud services provision

CASE STUDY: ORANGE BUSINESS SERVICES


netApp case study.qxd 14/02/2014 11:01 Page 2

customer's datastore required manual effortfrom the operations team, an unsustainableoperational model. To increase capacity, OBShad to aggregate cells into a single datastorethat was visible from VMware and from thecustomer portal. Scheduling and completingthe work typically took two full days - not ascalable process. Degardin went on: "And todecrease capacity, we had to migratecustomer data to a smaller datastore. Wecouldn't simply remove a LUN from thedatastore because we would lose data."

A FFLEXIBLE CCLOUD AARCHITECTURE OBS gained the flexibility that differentiates itscloud service by replacing the original cloudstorage with the NetApp Unified StorageArchitecture. Multiprotocol support in NetAppstorage enables them to use the samestorage architecture for primary and backupstorage and for physical and virtual servers.This relieves the IT team from having to learnand manage multiple storage environments.In the company's data centres in France andSingapore, they deployed paired NetAppFAS6240 storage systems for productiondata and paired NetApp FAS3240 storagesystems for backup. Support for Network FileSystem (NFS) protocol in NetApp storagesolved the problems they had previously hadwith the Fibre Channel SAN, making capacitymanagement far more efficient.

PROVIDING TTIERED SSLASOBS is now able to offer tiered service levelsfor storage performance - Gold and Silver -using the same NetApp storageinfrastructure. The technology behind tieredservice levels is NetApp Flash Cache, which

accelerates data access by caching recentlyread user data or NetApp metadata.Customers that request the gold servicereceive an SLA for 600 IOPS. Their dataresides on SAS drives that are front-ended byFlash Cache. Customers that choose thesilver service receive an SLA for 160 IOPS.With Flash Cache, Orange can meet this SLAusing lower cost SATA drives, helping tokeep service costs down.

"We think of Flash Cache as bridging thegap between our SLAs and actual diskperformance," explains Degardin. "We useNetApp FlexShare to specify the relativepriorities of volumes, allocating 80% of theFlash Cache capacity to gold-tier customersand the remaining 20% to silver-tiercustomers."

AT TTHE HHEART OOF TTHE CCLOUDWith its Flexible Computing infrastructure-as-a-service solutions, Orange BusinessServices has redefined its business and itscustomer relationships. "Customers see usmore and more as a single source for their ITand network needs," said Thierry Bonhomme,CEO of Orange Business Services.

Orange Business Services can monitor theavailability and performance of an IT system -from the end user's workspace through thenetwork and back to the data centre - so itscustomers don't have to worry about a singlelink in the chain. Today, NetApp R&D teamswork alongside Orange Business ServicesR&D teams and its vendors to design,develop, and take to market new solutions forOrange Business Services' vast target

market. This includes large enterprises in220 countries and territories as well as smallto medium businesses in its Frenchdomestic market.

"Our Flexible Computing service is built ontechnology from today's leading vendors,and NetApp solutions are the heart of ourcloud offerings," reveals Bonhomme. "Theyreally embraced our ambitious businessmodel and allowed us to scale quickly."

With 35PB of NetApp storage and counting,Orange Business Services will continue toleverage the power of NetApp storage anddata management technologies when it rollsout a new line of big data solutions. "Storageis even more important in big data," revealsLaplane. "Big data is all about storage,compute, and analytics, so we need a verystrong storage partner. With NetApp we havefound a solid partner that's incredibly easy towork with."

GROWING OORANGE"In the current economic environment," saysBonhomme, "the ability to launch aninnovative business fast without sinking intons of capital is one of the big benefits ofcloud computing. Leading corporationsworldwide are already turning to OrangeBusiness Services' Flexible Computing toachieve greater IT agility. We are reallyexcited about the way that FlexibleComputing is transforming business. We arebringing together a wealth of technology tocreate new customer experiences, products,and services that will unleash innovation." More iinfo: wwww.netapp.com


CASE STUDY: ORANGE BUSINESS SERVICES

"Our Flexible Computing service is built on technol-

ogy from today's leading vendors, and NetApp

solutions are the heart of our cloud offerings. They

really embraced our ambitious business model and

allowed us to scale quickly."

netApp case study.qxd 14/02/2014 11:01 Page 3

@CHMagAndAwards

When Microsoft officially launchedOffice 365 in June 2011 it wasrightly seen as a landmark step for

the company and a significant pivot to thecloud. Customers using the SharePointplatform need to build strategies to balancethe benefits of on-premise flavours ofSharePoint and the add-ons that build uponthis platform with the standardisation benefitsassociated with Office 365 and the cloud.

STATE OOF PPLAYMicrosoft's launching of Office 365 saw theworld's biggest desktop software firmmoving to the cloud and competing directlywith such cloud software services asGoogle Docs. But with the spread of the on-premise SharePoint platform simultaneouslygaining traction across the enterprise, theshift raises a number of questions - andopportunities - about content, recordsmanagement and governance work in ahybrid SharePoint world.

AIIM is occasionally accused of being bothan attacker of SharePoint AND a SharePointapologist. We are neither, but we must allacknowledge that SharePoint is a majorplayer in the content managementmarketplace, with around 125 millionlicensed users worldwide, and users are

wrestling with the fundamentals of theircontent management decisions as neverbefore. Should we move to the cloud?Should we move everything to the cloud? Ifnot, how do we manage governance in ahybrid environment?

These questions are never simple, evenwithin a single vendor environment. Someorganisations are users of the traditional, on-premise SharePoint. However even this isnot a single platform given that AIIM surveystell us that including SharePoint 2013, thereare four generations of SharePoint incommercial use.

Other organisations are migrating to theSharePoint that comes with Office 365.Each and every deployment comes with itsown particular challenges, as AIIMdiscovered in 2012 when we released ourreport, 'The SharePoint Puzzle - adding themissing pieces'.

This research sought to map the drivers,strategy choices and uptake of SharePointadd-ons for governance, ECM, BPM andcollaboration and the findings revealed theextent of the complexity surrounding manydeployments. At the time of our survey lastyear, almost half of those surveyed (44%)

were using some form of ECM/DM alongsideSharePoint and seven in ten were not usingSharePoint as their primary, enterprise-wideECM system. In the next few weeks AIIM willbe launching its 2013 survey, and I believewe will see significant changes in thesenumbers.

In the survey there was a base level ofsatisfaction amongst users, with more thanhalf (55%) saying it was the right decision tochoose SharePoint. SharePoint has provento be more complicated than anticipated formany organisations; 22% felt they have onlyachieved a basic deployment compared totheir original ambitions. The main shortfalls inexpectations were the difficulties that comewith content migration and informationgovernance, with more than half ofrespondents (54%) planning third party add-on products in order to enhance functionality.All of which means that SharePoint is aplatform rather than an application -something Microsoft constantly points outand many business users forget - and thatany platform requires development to makeit work.

HEIGHTENED CCOMPLEXITYFast forward to Microsoft's and SharePoint'spivot to the cloud. The pivot means that most

Microsoft - at thecloud tipping pointThe SharePoint world is at a significant tippingpoint, argues John Mancini of AIIM: customersare moving into a hybrid world, with someorganisations moving to the cloud, some stickingwith on-premise and most opting for a hybridsolution

STRATEGY: SHAREPOINT

Jan/Feb 2014 Cloudhosting26

CH AIIM article.qxd 14/02/2014 13:05 Page 2

organisations - as they migrate to the cloud,think about migrating to the cloud or mostlikely proceed with a hybrid solution - areentering an era of unparalleled complexity interms of their information, content and dataand how that is stored, managed andutilised.

For small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs), Office 365 can act as a one-stopshop from a provider they know and for themost part trust. For any business currentlyrelying on file-sharing, email andspreadsheets to run their business - in otherwords for most SMEs - cloud basedsolutions and getting out of the e-mailhosting business can be a significant stepforward. For larger enterprises the issues ofgovernance in particular become morecomplex as they enter a hybrid world that willlikely include on-premise, private and publiccloud solutions and a host of variations andcombinations.

In its latest version, SharePoint hassignificantly improved its recordsmanagement and e-discovery functionality.The FAST search functionality is more fullybaked into the new offerings. There aresignificant enhancements in socialfunctionality within the SharePoint platformitself. The Yammer integration will beextremely interesting to watch. Yammer hasalready been integrated into Dynamics CRM.Basic integration with Office 365 will occurthis summer and allow customers to replacethe SharePoint newsfeed with Yammer.Deeper Yammer integration is slated forautumn / winter.

YOUR SSTEPS TTO SSUCCESSLike any solution, how and whetherSharePoint is appropriate for yourorganisation and for what purpose is afunction not only of the product but also ofyour particular business needs, what othersolutions are currently in play, and how thesesolutions are expected to play together.

The first step is take a deep breath and take

stock of your situation and address thingsholistically. The complexity of yourenvironment depends enormously on whathas been done previously. If you have anearly version of on-premise SharePoint forexample, your step to SharePoint 2013 willfeel more like a new implementation ratherthan an upgrade.

Addressing issues of governance is key toany successful content managementdeployment. The main issue of governancewith SharePoint deployments is that untilfairly recently many SharePointimplementations were in small project teamswithin a business and any "governance"required was specific to that point solution.For organisations that want SharePoint toplay a larger role and be much moreingrained across the business, governancestrategies must be adjusted accordingly. Inthe words of SharePoint evangelist Jeff

Shuey, Director of Strategic Alliances atWinshuttle, SharePoint governance is aboutto change from "little-g" governance to "big-g"governance.

Perhaps most important though, is toexplore exactly why the business is choosingto deploy SharePoint. This is more importantthan what features or functions the tool mayhave, and lies at the heart of any successfuldeployment. Organisations that are buildingcomplicated process solutions on theSharePoint platform will need to thinkthrough the differences between on-premiseSharePoint 2013 and the cloud-basedSharePoint within Office365. As with anyenterprise content solution, users must berealistic about what they are trying to achievewith SharePoint and understand when athird-party add-on is required to completethe vision.More iinfo: wwww.aiim.org


STRATEGY: SHAREPOINT

"For small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs),

Office 365 can act as a one-stop shop from a

provider they know and for the most part trust. For

any business currently relying on file-sharing, email

and spreadsheets to run their business - in other

words for most SMEs -- cloud based solutions and

getting out of the e-mail hosting business can be a

significant step forward. For larger enterprises the

issues of governance in particular become more

complex as they enter a hybrid world that will likely

include on-premise, private and public cloud

solutions and a host of variations and

combinations."

CH AIIM article.qxd 14/02/2014 13:05 Page 3

Laptop, Smartphone and tablet haveovertaken desktop usage, andenterprises are mobilising everything

from ERP to Office 365 and customersupport. The use of mobile devices hasresulted in users doing their routine businessactivities on the go.

This growing mobility trend meets the BYOD[Bring Your Own Device] movement and isputting enterprise networks at risk. BYODmeans that mobile devices often circumventcorporate networks and their securityumbrellas. When a mobile device connects toa public or 4G network, IT administrators losevisibility and control, because appliancescannot see the traffic outside the corporaterealm any more. Traditional security solutions,such as in-line URL filtering, are beingrendered ineffective in the mobility age.

Anti-virus (AV) software, another standardend user security solution in the enterprise,has also been rendered ineffective by mobile.Resources are finite on mobile devices andbattery life is limited, so continually runningbackground apps is less than desirable andthe sandboxed nature of the file systemprevents AV from scanning all local data.Moreover, on iOS, AV isn't an option at all, asthis operating system doesn't permit apps to

run in the background. As such, a staple ofsecurity in the PC world is dead when itcomes to adapting it into the mobile world.

As enterprises move corporate data to thecloud and employees connect throughmobile devices, a new security paradigm isnecessary. Security appliances and host-based solutions simply cannot meet theneeds of the rapidly changing, global andmobile enterprise. The solution to securelyscale an increasingly distributed businessdoes not lie in the purchase of more hardwareand software. IT departments must shift froma mentality of 'block vs. allow' to 'manage andmonitor'.

A new approach takes security away fromstatic appliances that do not cover mobileusers and increasingly create choke points forInternet traffic. A worldwide network thatsurrounds the Internet, bi-directionally

inspecting all end user traffic, regardless oflocation or device, provides an answer.Considering the distributed nature of globalorganisations with their mobile workforce andthe ubiquitous cloud services, organisationsneed to embrace a distributed network andsecurity architecture that meets its users'requirements in the cloud.

Such a cloud-based security model is theway forward. It is not reliant on where users areor what devices they are using to access theweb or cloud applications. The cloud offers aflexible way to lessen the risk of employee-owned devices bypassing conventionalfiltering layers. A cloud security model acts likea check post between the user and theInternet, and all Internet-bound traffic goesthrough it, hence enabling businesses toembrace mobility and cloud, while enforcingsecurity policies that follow the userwww.zscaler.com

Securing theMobility Agethrough the CloudEmployee mobility will be the rule rather thanthe exception in the cloud-connected enter-prise, bringing with it a whole new raft of securi-ty concerns, argues Michael Sutton, VP ofsecurity research at Zscaler

MANAGEMENT: SECURITY


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Document1 11/06/2013 12:28 Page 1

Cloud services are designed to bringagility, simplicity, efficiency and self-service capabilities to a business

and to support new ways of working andnew opportunities. Among the manybenefits on offer is the ability to selectinfrastructure and services from a range ofdifferent vendors. In reality though, manyvendors are failing in their promise to deliverthese services. In such a competitive andsaturated market, vendors are all claiming todeliver the same thing - and as a result theyare unable to differentiate themselves.

While businesses have freedom of choicein terms of selecting infrastructure andservices, first and foremost they need tohave an understanding of what they needand the capabilities of their existinginfrastructure. There is a lack of educationand understanding around the cloud,especially in terms of understanding thebenefits that it can offer in the context of anyexisting capacity and capability. That said,enterprises are missing opportunities andnot taking full advantage of the cloudbecause they do not know how to utilise it toits best advantage.

One of the biggest advantages attractingenterprises to the cloud is its ability tocontrol how services are consumed, and inturn to better balance demands, costs,reliability, security and performance.However, when demand spikes, what is an

enterprise to do? Scale up and purchasemore infrastructure or infrastructure services,or identify existing capacity and reallocateresources?

Identifying existing under-utilised ITresources should always be the first port ofcall before any additional services orresources are purchased. While it's notnecessarily an easy task, it can saveenterprises a substantial amount of money.For the executives, cost efficiency bymanaging budgets, knowing whatdepartments are spending their budgets onand ultimately, where money can be saved,is always on the agenda. Technology is noexception.

IT'S AALL TTOO EEASYWith the likes of Amazon shaping the cloudmarketplace it has become shockingly easyto acquire cloud services. Enterpriseapplication and business developmentteams can easily bypass their IT departmentcompletely and acquire additional servicesin minutes, meaning visibility and controlover data and who has access to it is at anall-time low. Being able to browse through acatalogue of business ready services andproduce the company credit card toinstantly procure additional IT services, withno reference to the IT department, isappealing and easy. It's true, IT departmentscan quite often be the bottleneck in theapproval and provisioning of cloud services,

but ultimately this goes against the idea ofhaving the cloud at the heart of thebusiness. In this case the idea of the cloudis just an add-on and prevents trueoptimisation, which in turn impedes accessto the benefits that the cloud can provide.

Spending on cloud services is increasing.Maximising cloud expenditure relies uponhaving a full and comprehensiveunderstanding of the cloud platforms inplace, and managing their provision. Byusing unified applications, IT departmentscan seize back their control of serviceallocation, budgeting, access andgovernance and define their own rules. Theywill also be able to gain a clearer oversightof what's being accessed, allocated, utilisedand underutilised. This will not onlysubstantially simplify cloud processes, butwill ensure that existing assets andresources are being fully optimised. It willalso ensure that money isn't being wastedon the procurement of services that aren'tnecessarily needed.

Knowing for certain that you can provide aseamless cloud service should be a vitalpart of any organisation's strategy. Equally,gaining control and independence of yourcloud services, internal assets and theirapplication, must also be a vital part of anycloud planning and deployment: somethingwhich shouldn't be overlooked. More iinfo: wwww.abiquo.com

Controlled chaosLee Fisher from Abiquo explains how poorlyplanned out cloud adoption can undermine thebenefits on offer and frustrate the journey to thecloud

OPINION: UNIFIED APPLICATIONS


Abiquo piece.qxd 13/02/2014 13:02 Page 2

Untangling the network


STRATEGY: SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING

Alot of attention has been given torunning applications in the cloudand the underlying server and

storage infrastructure that will be requiredto operate them. However, a lot lessattention has been afforded to thenetworks required to support them.

Hardware has been catching up with theneeds of the cloud network. New switchescan run scripts and talk to the hypervisorsso that if during a failover event, forexample, a virtual machine moves fromone hypervisor to another, the networkmoves with it. This reduces the need tohave all of the servers running within thesame logical vLAN, which requires a lot ofactive management.

The next evolution is software-definednetworking (SDN), where the control planeof a device is separated from the dataplane. This offers centralisedmanagement of a network infrastructureand the ability for monitoring systems toreact to failures by directly alteringconfigurations to work around them. Thisresults in resilience over fault tolerance.

RESILIENCE IIS KKINGResilience needs to be above theprovision of fault tolerance. Fault tolerancemeans that your network can withstand asingle fault, establishing the practice ofavoiding a single point of failure. This isn'tenough for the diverse range ofapplications, users or clients that dependon the cloud. With many tenants on thecloud, all expecting to stay isolated andhave five-nines uptime, the network needs

not just to be able to tolerate faults (pluralintended), but also to work around anyfaults while impacting the fewest tenants.

If you can't work around these faults thenit should at least fail gracefully. Mostnetworks that are fault tolerant will survivethe first failure, but then everything goesdown when the second failure occurs -and mostly with no apparent grace!

This is where SDN can help. By ensuringthat the control plane and managementlayers are separated from the actualhardware, they aren't affected by anysingle fault. They should be able toanalyse all aspects of the network (fromcapacity on links to current configurations)while being aware of your critical tenants,so that the network can fail in a way thatprotects the connectivity to those selectedgroups.

CONVERGING TTHEMESConvergence is another feature of a well-designed cloud network. Legacyinfrastructure generally has two networks:one for application traffic between serversand users, and one over whichapplications can access files on storagedevices. Both of these use differenttechnologies and each is optimised for itsrole. But this comes at a very high cost indedicated components, incompatibleinterconnection technologies andreplicated management for each of thenetworks.

A converged network can perform boththe roles of a legacy network but uses a

common technology (lossless Ethernet)that brings many economies of scale andis far easier to manage. In a convergednetwork, a port is a port; an administratoror the software with SDN decides how youwant to use it at the time you plug a serveror storage device in. This system hasenough intelligence to separate the twokinds of traffic to ensure that each gets itsappropriate priority and bandwidth.

While technology for cloud servers andapplications is fairly well developed, theunderlying network that it relies on hasbeen slow to catch up. If you aredesigning a network today that will have alarge number of cloud applications beingdeployed, it is worth looking at some ofthe newer technologies.

They will cost a bit more, but if welldesigned and deployed they will help tomake sure that your network is able tocope with the demands of the cloud, nowand into the future.More iinfo: wwww.4d-ddc.com

David Barker, Technical Director at 4D Data Centres offers some guidanceon building a new cloud-ready network with Software-Defined Networking(SDN) at its heart

CH - 4D Data article 2.qxd 13/02/2014 13:09 Page 1

Yum Brands is the world's largestrestaurant company with more than37,000 restaurants in over 110 countries

and territories and more than one millionassociates. Its restaurant brands include KFC,Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Outside of the U.S. in2009, Yum opened more than four newrestaurants every day of the year.

The UK operation employs thousands ofpeople throughout the country with over700 restaurants and delivery stores withinthe Pizza Hut chain alone. In such a largeand quickly expanding operation, there is aphenomenal amount of business criticalinformation being sent across networksevery day. This was increased four yearsago when the Pizza Hut chain enabledcustomers to begin ordering online.

It became crucial to identify the correctpartner to solve the specific issues facingthe business: adding the capability toenable online ordering at Pizza Hut madeit quickly apparent to Yum Brandexecutives that its existing data centre wasno longer adequate for the expected risein website traffic.

GOING LLARGE"Our previous data centre was fine for ourinitial needs, but as we expanded andoffered more services to our customers weoutgrew it," explained Fawad Shah, networkand infrastructure manager at Yum Brands."We were not able to receive the highoperational availability, fast changemanagement turnaround which ourbusiness demanded and most importantlythe high level of operational and securitycompliance that a global brand such asours would demand and expect from ourhosting partner. Other factors that wereimportant were the relationship. We werelooking to work with a partner who

Getting a bigger slice of the businessAs the online business for Pizza Hut UK increases to over one millionorders a week, parent group Yum Brands has moved to new hostingpartner Virtustream

CASE STUDY: PIZZA HUT

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Virtustream.qxd 14/02/2014 11:03 Page 2

understood our business and did not havethe legacy customer/supplier relationship,as well as the high density power capabilityto accommodate our footprintrequirements."

Taking the project to a competitive pitch,Shah had compiled an impressive list ofcompanies including Computacenter,Global Switch, BT, SCC and Virtustream. Herequired a partner that would be 'a good fit'for Yum. With the level of expansionplanned, he needed to be reassured thatYum would be treated with priority. "We alsoneeded a partner that was flexible and easyto work with. If we needed to make asudden change to our services, our partnerwould need to action this within hours ratherthan days or weeks," explained Shah.

TICKING AALL TTHE BBOXESAs a company with over a decade ofexperience managing virtual environmentsand offering a flexible approach that allowsclients to capitalise on the flux of today'sdynamic business requirements,Virtustream ticked all of these boxes. Thedata centre is purpose designed and builtmeeting one of the highest levels of Tieredoperational capability, guaranteeing as aminimum of five 9's uptime and reliability. AllVirtustream data centres in the UK are ISO9001-2008 and ISO27001-2005 certifiedand all technical personnel are governmentsecurity vetted. "Meeting and exceeding ourcompliance requirements" as Shah says.

Virtustream is a leading cloud innovatoroffering enterprise class cloud solutions toenterprises, governments and serviceproviders. Virtustream enables businessesto move complex production applications tothe cloud - whether private, public or hybrid- while delivering the full economic andbusiness benefits of the cloud. Virtustreamoffers xStream, cloud managementsoftware for private/public/hybrid cloudsand also offers the Virtustream Cloud whichprovides secure, high availability,Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) toenterprises.

"When you walked into the data centre itwas clear that this was designed and builtby an organisation with the intentions toprovide the very best service," said Shah."As one of the anchor companies in thedata centre, it also gave us the potential toexpand significantly if and when weneeded to."

Working with SysMicro, Pizza Hut'sinfrastructure and managed servicespartner, Pizza Hut's legacy infrastructurewas relocated to the Virtustream datacentre, on to new platforms which includedvirtualisation, blade servers and a MPLSnetwork which connects every Pizza Hutoutlet and restaurant back to core systems.

Shah was also impressed with thepersonnel: "The team designed and builtthe data centre to the highest spec. They

really understand the market, what acompany like us needs from a hostingpartner and they ensure that this isdelivered. Working with a company likeVirtustream and seeing firsthand theexperience and expertise of the team at thesite, we knew that our data was in a safeenvironment".

VIRTUAL FFUTURESWith the website server now in place andwith over £1m of orders a week comingthrough the data centre, Yum has expandedtheir footprint within the data centre. Thereare also further plans for expansionincluding bringing in other brands from theYum group to the site as Shah explains:"Moving forward we will look to integrate ournetworks with other restaurant chains in theYum group. One of our major objectives isto improve our business continuity as agroup and Virtustream can certainly helpwith that. Incorporating KFC's network forexample, which is currently located at itsheadquarters in Woking, will allow us to splitthe stores across two data centres. In theevent of a failure the stores in the affectedsite will simply transfer to the other."

As the group continues to grow, Yum isincreasingly looking towards a fullyvirtualised environment to ensure that theycontinue to drive cost savings, whilstoperating in a flexible, but secureenvironment. www.virtustream.com


CASE STUDY: PIZZA HUT

"Our previous data centre was fine for our initial needs, but as we expanded

and offered more services to our customers we outgrew it. We were not able

to receive the high operational availability, fast change management turn-

around which our business demanded and most importantly the high level

of operational and security compliance that a global brand such as ours

would demand and expect from our hosting partner."

Virtustream.qxd 18/02/2014 12:28 Page 3

Most organisations are alreadyoperating a hybrid IT estate in oneform or another, and according to the

Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), this trend willcontinue for the foreseeable future.

This mix of on-premise, hosted and cloudservices, along with the proliferation of mobilesolutions, collaboration and devices, meansthat the future challenge confronting ITmanagers is how to build an effective hybrid ITestate while meeting the operational andgovernance needs of the organisation.

Andy Burton of the CIF states: "Hybrid IT ishardly a new phenomenon as it relates to theco-existence of multiple IT deploymentmodels, which has been true for mostbusiness since the move away frommainframes in the 1980's. However, mostcauses of a hybrid environment have been theproduct of a transition process rather than anexplicit strategy. Arguably this is no longer thecase today, and to further test the extent towhich on-premise will continue to co-existalongside cloud-based services, we askedparticipants that already use cloud services ifthey would ever consider moving their entire ITestate to the cloud. The results were quiteenlightening in that almost 50 per cent of firmscould eventually see themselves one daybeing wholly based in the cloud (12% as soon

as possible, 17% based on IT refresh cyclesand the balance when they perceived thecloud was able to accommodate all of theirbusiness IT needs). The remaining 50%cannot see a day when they will be entirelybased in the cloud, but only 4% had noexpectation of ever using a cloud service."

Matt Eckersall, UK Director of Hosting,Microsoft, comments: "We know that fortoday's CIOs and business leaders, the cloudpresents an opportunity to redefine the rolethat the IT and non-IT business functions playin implementing a business strategy. Becauseof its power to fundamentally change howbusinesses operate and compete, the cloud isa game changer for many companies. As wefocus on people, we know that no businessservice you create today lives on an island.You need apps, communication, andcollaboration to connect together in an agileway. To achieve this, we believe you need acomprehensive cloud - from platform, toproductivity, to business solutions. It doesn'tmake business sense to make a one-offsoftware decision in today's world. So thehybrid way really will remain the practicaldeployment model for the foreseeable future."

Nick East, CEO of Zynstra, a provider ofhybrid cloud solutions for SMEs, stated: "Thecombination of on-premise and cloud services

is nothing short of a marriage made in heavenfor the SME. Hybrid IT is the perfect solutionfor this market. Today it is possible to provideSMEs with world-class IT capabilities in a waythat allows them to pay as the benefits arerealised, not when the solution is firstdeployed. Arguably enterprise-class IT at anSME cost. SMEs face the same challenges asthey look to migrate to the cloud as any otherorganisation, including concerns over datasovereignty, data privacy and control. Inaddition, they are often concerned aboutlimited access to Internet bandwidth. For thesereasons, we have no doubt that SMEs willnaturally gravitate towards a hybrid model thatlets them use applications and store data atthe point that works best for them."

Gilles Samoun, Chairman and CEO ofAbiquo, a cloud management platformprovider, added: "IT has always had to dealwith the compromise between designing theperfect infrastructure for each IT solution, andstandardising to gain economies of scale anddeliver a consistent set of services. Moving toa hybrid model of cloud services deals withthe scale issues for hardware, but introducesnew challenges in maintaining consistency ofservice provision and support. Increasingly wewill see companies look beyond just viewingcloud as an alternate infrastructure, andexamine how a multi-provider cloud world canbe integrated to their inventories, monitoringand support systems, and processes. Thehybrid, multi-provider cloud model will play abig part in this transition, giving businessesmore choice and flexibility. As a consequence,rather than "move to the cloud" we seecompanies making the cloud an extension oftheir own tried and tested environments." Ch

Best of both worlds?Hybrid IT would appear to be the prevailing deployment model for theforeseeable future, says research from the Cloud Industry Forum - CloudHosting Magazine takes a closer look

ANALYSIS: HYBRID CLOUD


Hybrid.qxd 14/02/2014 11:04 Page 2

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